


When a Haircut Isn't Just a Haircut

by FalabaWitch



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Character Study, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Gen, I have far too many feelings about Pidge, Important haircuts, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-23 18:02:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9670007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FalabaWitch/pseuds/FalabaWitch
Summary: Pidge thinks about her hair, her name, her family, and what all those things mean





	

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this completely on a whim, and it is absolutely not beta'd. But I had to write this so much because I have so many feelings about Pidge and I needed to express them in some manner.

Pidge looked in the mirror that morning, and realized how long her hair had gotten. She ran a hand through it, twirling one of the more stubborn pieces that kept sticking out from the rest.

She had barely thought about it since they had gone to space. At the Garrison, she had kept it short with an anxious fervor. Any time it would get too long, Iverson began to look at her oddly, like he was connecting the dots in his little brain that she looked just too familiar. And every time she panicked, and took scissors to it that night. Any one who would come into her room the next morning, and see a pile of hair in the traps. No one ever asked, and Pidge never offered an answer.

Now she didn’t have to do it anymore, although Pidge was sure if she asked Allura the option would be open to her. Lance managed to keep his haircut maintained, and Shiro had to keep up his edgy undercut somehow.

She ran her hand through her hair again, and bit her lip. Both she and Matt had the same, unruly, difficult, thick, hair. When she still went by Katie, and she was still with mom and dad and Matt, her mom would take a brush through her hair and tell her it was beautiful.

Pidge tried not to think about that same mom, sitting back on Earth, alone and heartbroken, because the hungry void of space had taken her whole family and left her behind. A lonely woman who has only the stars to remind her of her son, her daughter, and her husband. Katie would have thought about it. But she’s not Katie anymore. Katie had long, unruly hair, and didn’t have to worry about saving the universe, and was cut from her the same time she cut her hair.

(Pidge didn’t have a family to worry about. At least she hadn’t started with one. Voltron had changed that. Voltron had changed everything, and now Pidge wasn’t alone in this universe and as much her name as Katie Holt.)

But now her hair was growing back. Her Holt hair was crawling down her neck and well on her way to her shoulders, coming back like old Ivy plants.

Names and identities and hair were funny things in Pidge’s life. She understood, conciously, who she was, what she was, and what she was not. But having two names and separating those two lives made that identity more… complex.

Katie was Matt Holts little sister who idolized him and would do anything for him. She liked her long hair and didn’t mind the dresses. She was a prodigy, and enjoyed beating the high scores on the machines at the arcade.

Pidge was a tech genius cadet who had been dragged out to space to become a hero with a robotic cat. She had her hair short and didn’t mind the flight suits. The pilot of the green lion, and still liked beating the high scores on the fancy new gaming system, much to Lance’s abhorrence.

Except. Katie was also a tech genius and Pidge loved Matt Holt enough to scour an entire empire for him. They were different, but still the same. Still her.

“The question is,” Pidge murmured to herself, “Does Pidge also want to grow her hair out?”

She kept playing with her hair, twisting it and tangling it up with her fingers. Her family, her name, her past, all tangled up in a haircut.

Pidge pressed the button for the coms, “Hey Allura? Where in the castle can I find something that cuts?”

“Well that is an odd question, but I suppose there much be something around here. Why do you ask Pidge?”

“I need to cut my hair. it’s getting a bit long.”

There was a pause on Allura’s end, “Well I’m sure Lance or Shiro have something, I would ask them. You don’t have to cut your hair though Pidge, I mean, look at Keith.”

Pidge laughed, “I know, but I want to keep it out of my way while I’m working in the lions.”

“Alright. Good luck on your mission Pidge,” And with that the comm cut off.

Pidge looked in the mirror one last time before going off to find her fellow pilots. One day, maybe, she wouldn’t keep it short. And maybe one day she would look back in that mirror and see Katie as well as Pidge. 

But right now, she wasn’t quite ready to do that. And she would keep her hair short.


End file.
